daily kaddish: the old Bay Bridge

You might start to think we’re getting a bit grumpy here at “kaddish in two-part harmony” after seeing a bunch of Kaddishim in a row in which I’m whining about not feeling like it, being tired after a long day, yada yada. This is one more of those, alas, but don’t blame Mira. I’m the grumpy one.

Don’t listen to me whine. I’m fine. I’ve been fine. I’ll be fine. But it’s been an exhausting few weeks, and it had been a long day, and I wasn’t feeling well, and—

It was Monday. Time to come home from my weekend away, vacating the house so that my wife can sort and pack and prepare for moving out next week. I’d been girding my loins for the depressing return home to chaos, disarray, and the palpable angst of our impending divorce. And then something else happened to make it even more Mondayish: the Bay Bridge was all backed up, a five-lane parking lot. My trip home, which after dark on a Monday should take about half an hour, took over two hours. I got home grumpy, exhausted, and frustrated—and then I wandered around the house for about an hour in a bleary state of numb disorientation, discovering which things had been packed, which left behind. I tried to figure out the logic of it and could discern none.

Mind you, it’s all just stuff. It can be replaced. None of it means anything compared to the larger issues at stake here—the loss of hope, the disappointments, the fear and anger, all the real stuff of divorce. And none of what I’m going through probably compares to what my ex is going through—she’s the one who’s having to move out, who will need to furnish a new place, who will be leaving behind four furry ones.

So all the stuff that’s leaving, all the stuff that’s staying—well, it’s all just stuff, isn’t it? None of it is what either one of us would grab if the house were on fire.

And my horns aren’t out and ready for action—one is in its case, having just come home with me from a weekend away that included several gigs. The other is hiding under the piano, having been thoughtfully and carefully packed into its gig bag and tucked under the piano for its own safety while people were bustling about with boxes and packing materials and tape and markers and stuff. The studio Mac has come back from repairs but is still in the shipping box. My studio is full of boxes and dust.

And I’m fried, numb, and exhausted.

So I muttered through the text, a kaddish for the old Bay Bridge whose stopgap repairs will be irrelevant once the new section is finished, but which are happening anyway and which made this already crappy day a few hours longer.

My Hebrew and Aramaic are still pretty lousy, too, aren’t they?

About erin

Erin Vang, PMP, BMus, MMus, is Owner and Principal Pragmatist of the consultancy Global Pragmatica LLC®, offering custom JMP scripting, localization program management, and facilitative leadership services. She is also an orchestral horn player who freelances in the San Francisco Bay Area and plays assorted brass for the celebrated dance bands Midnight Smørgåsbord and contraPtion. More about Erin…